It's all about Shirley.

This morning Shirley found ultrasound pictures from my pregnancy with Richard. I sat down to show her the images. I said, "Here is his face, his nose, see his fist? Here is his foot."
On the final picture she pointed to Richard's squiggly profile and said, "And here is my hair. It is so long and beautiful, Mama. Like Rapunzel."
I said, "Yes! Yes it is."

Ultrasound Day!!!

Ultrasound Day was last week, but (like my birthday) I like to make special events last as long as possible. The technician for our appointment was incredibly thorough and we got to see everything on BittyWee from the umbilical cord to the brain, lungs, heart, stomach and kidneys. It was really exciting to see what God is knitting together for our family.

BittyWee's heart rate was in the 140's (if you're keeping track), and the tech determined that s/he is 13 ounces.

Now, on to the good stuff:

On the right side of the photo here, you can see BittyWee's face and skull.

Between his/her chin and abdomen (at the top) is the right fist.

BittyWee's Right foot. Five toes. Whew.

Profile pictures of growing babies are my favorite. They look the most "baby-like" to me.

I think this one is neat, too, because if you look closely, you can see TEETH BUDS growing in BittyWee's sweet jaw. Crazy!

BittyWee's left fist was all over the place while we were taking pictures.

The tech kept saying things like, "If we discover [this] it could mean that your baby has [this birth defect]. Let's find out!"and "Oh, I don't do 3D ultrasounds. I think they're a waste of time." I'm sorry, WHAT?!? She needed to work on her delivery a little bit. Also, I don't care what the tech thinks. If I ask for a 3D ultrasound, which I KNOW is something Stillwater offers--nay--boasts, I think you ought to be willing to push the button to show me my baby in 3D. I'm just saying.

Anyway, aside from that, it was a very good experience.

Ultrasound Photos

The ultrasound visit was pret-ty cool.
We saw the baby moving around like crazy, sucking its thumb, sticking out its tongue, everything. It was quite the experience. I thought for sure that I would have a million questions, but instead I was so stunned I could hardly say anything!
As we left the appointment, Richard said, "That was the weirdest 20 minutes of my life..."
Rich also insisted that the doctor make sure that the femurs both looked good and strong. (LOL)
One bummer is that the doc AND nurse both referred to the baby as HE, even though we were both very adamant that we don't want to know the baby's sex. I pointed out to Rich that we've been calling it a HE since the day we found out we were having a baby, but still...it was sort of a bummer.
If you're keeping track, baby's heartrate is 134 (so slow!!), which is another sign that it could be a boy. To be honest, I don't put ANY stock in this guessing nonsense. It is what it is, and as Brenda said last night, "You can't change it anyway!"
It was a pretty cool experience to see that little baby flopping around in there and doing baby stuff!
I could go on and on, but let's get to the good stuff. The images here are not NEARLY as clear as they were on the screen, but they give you a pretty good idea of where we're at.

3D image of baby sucking its thumb (or at least attempting to!). This made me happy since I was a thumb sucker for WAAAAY too long. : )




Baby's face. The white part is its nose, the chin is pointing to the right, and its forehead is to the left. Can you see it?

This is my favorite from the appointment. Just a foot. This is the one that makes it a REAL baby to me. The rest of the pics are sort of...creepy.



Profile view of baby.
Its head is far left, the is fist at the top, connected to the forearm and elbow, which is touching the knee.

Ultrasound

Ultrasound today at 5pm!
I'm so excited that my stomach hurts!
!!!!!